Course Details

Cost

FREE

Upcoming Schedule

On demand

Course Provider

Coursera online courses

Coursera's online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over
course material. Some of the best professors in the world - like neurobiology
professor and author Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago, and computer
science professor and Folding@Home director Vijay Pande - will supplement your
knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging
assessments, interactive exercises during each lesson, and the opportunity to
use a mobile app to keep up with yo...

Coursera's online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over
course material. Some of the best professors in the world - like neurobiology
professor and author Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago, and computer
science professor and Folding@Home director Vijay Pande - will supplement your
knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging
assessments, interactive exercises during each lesson, and the opportunity to
use a mobile app to keep up with your coursework. Coursera also partners with
the US State Department to create “learning hubs” around the world. Students
can get internet access, take courses, and participate in weekly in-person
study groups to make learning even more collaborative. Begin your journey into
the mysteries of the human brain by taking courses in neuroscience. Learn how
to navigate the data infrastructures that multinational corporations use when
you discover the world of data analysis. Follow one of Coursera’s “Skill
Tracks”. Or try any one of its more than 560 available courses to help you
achieve your academic and professional goals.

Course Description

Learn both theory and application for basic methods that have been invented either for developing new concepts – principal components or clusters, or for finding interesting correlations – regression and classification. This is preceded by a thorough analysis of 1D and 2D data.

I'm dropping this course after 5 weeks. There are good bits about this course,
but you can probably read about those in other reviews. I'll focus on the bad
bits. First of all, it does not make sense to follow this kind of quality
course after the high quality courses "Data Analysis and Statistical
Inference" on coursera and MIT's "Introduction to Probability" on Edx which
cover similar topics, but in much greater depth and with much more rigour. I'm
sure Boris Mirkin is very knowledgeable, but i.m.h.o. he lacks the educational
skills. Sometimes the language he uses gets in the way. At other times he
explains bits left and right without a clear route of understanding things
with increasing complexity. There are times he does not explain why certain
concepts exist or how they are used. The slides often contain too much text,
numbers and formula's to be clear and informative. I found I had a better
understanding when I skipped his lect...
I'm dropping this course after 5 weeks. There are good bits about this course,
but you can probably read about those in other reviews. I'll focus on the bad
bits. First of all, it does not make sense to follow this kind of quality
course after the high quality courses "Data Analysis and Statistical
Inference" on coursera and MIT's "Introduction to Probability" on Edx which
cover similar topics, but in much greater depth and with much more rigour. I'm
sure Boris Mirkin is very knowledgeable, but i.m.h.o. he lacks the educational
skills. Sometimes the language he uses gets in the way. At other times he
explains bits left and right without a clear route of understanding things
with increasing complexity. There are times he does not explain why certain
concepts exist or how they are used. The slides often contain too much text,
numbers and formula's to be clear and informative. I found I had a better
understanding when I skipped his lectures and went straight to wikipedia or
some other resource. Because of that, it irritated me that he used terms and
definitions in a unique ways, so that I couldn't use wikipedia or online
searches to study. If I look up Quetelet Index, all I get are references to
BMI (Body Mass Index), but Boris uses that term for a general statistic.
Another example is the use of "odds-ratio" that differs from its official
definition. The programming assignments are quite easy. You can use any
language or tool you like. You download a dataset and upload the answer within
5 minutes. When the answer is incorrect, you can download a new dataset and
repeat until correct. The environment works. It's a bit specific about white
space and punctuation. I do like the idea, but I would prefer to download from
within the program using some API as some other programming courses offer. The
quizzes are so so. You are asked to show you've understood the definitions and
to calculate certain statistics. When doing the peer assessments, make sure to
read the grading criteria, because the question does not always comply with
them. I did the first run so there is room for improvement. Still I believe
there are better ways to learn about the topics that are covered by this
course.
read moreread less